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Effects of long‐range electrostatic forces on simulated protein folding kinetics
Author(s) -
Robertson Alex,
Luttmann Edgar,
Pande Vijay S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of computational chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.907
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1096-987X
pISSN - 0192-8651
DOI - 10.1002/jcc.20828
Subject(s) - kinetics , range (aeronautics) , folding (dsp implementation) , protein folding , chemical physics , electrostatics , chemistry , statistical physics , materials science , physics , classical mechanics , engineering , biochemistry , electrical engineering , composite material
Molecular dynamics simulations are a useful tool for characterizing protein folding pathways. There are several methods of treating electrostatic forces in these simulations with varying degrees of physical fidelity and computational efficiency. In this article, we compare the reaction field (RF) algorithm, particle‐mesh Ewald (PME), and tapered cutoffs with increasing cutoff radii to address the impact of the electrostatics method employed on the folding kinetics. We quantitatively compare different methods by a correlation of quantitative measures of protein folding kinetics. The results of these comparisons show that for protein folding kinetics, the RF algorithm can quantitatively reproduce the kinetics of the more costly PME algorithm. These results not only assist the selection of appropriate algorithms for future simulations, but also give insight on the role that long‐range electrostatic forces have in protein folding. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2008